by Maree, Kay
“Hi there,” he greeted him. “Are you ready to go exploring?” After opening the door, he ruffled Simon’s mane. He knew Simon would be ready for anything on offer after being couped up for the best part of a week. Adam quickly got their tack sorted, and within minutes he was leading Simon out into the yard, mounting up, and trotting toward the nearest paddock gate.
As he leaned out of his saddle to re-latch the gate, something moving in the corner of his peripheral vision caught his attention. As he focused, he could make out a figure on the veranda of the main house. Making a hasty decision, he sat back up, turned Simon toward open land, and kicked him into a gallop before either of them could recognise each other. He knew he wasn’t ready to face Callie yet, but he wasn’t ready to face her father yet either.
Galloping through the crisp morning air helped Adam sharpen his mind’s focus. He urged Simon on, enjoying being back in the familiar lush surrounds that had always brought him a sense of peace. It wasn’t surprising that he ended up at the waterhole he’d spent many hours at before he and his mother had left for Mt Isa. Time spent alone with Callie, day-dreaming of a future he’d let slip through his fingers. Sitting in the grassy clearing, his back resting against the base of a tall gum tree, he recognised that how he handled his interactions with Callie over the next days and weeks would determine how his life panned out. If he couldn’t convince her to listen to him and understand the choices he’d made, nothing in his life would make sense. However, if his words got through her defences and she gave him a chance to prove he was sincere about wanting to regain her trust, he would spend the rest of his life dedicated to making her happy and protecting her from anyone or anything that ever threatened her peace and happiness. Ada had never been one to pray, or even believe in God, but he found himself doing so again now. If there was a god out there who wanted good people like Callie to be loved and cherished and protected from harm, then surely his prayer would be answered so he could do just that. He was prepared to make it his life’s mission if he was given the chance. Hell, he was prepared to stay on and make it happen even if she didn’t give him a chance at a relationship with her.
If him ending up at the waterhole wasn’t a surprise to him, it shouldn’t have been a surprise when he heard the beat of approaching hooves. Simon had been standing nearby for the last half hour or so, but now he was nudging at Adam’s arm, trying to warn him about the incoming horse and rider. Adam knew who it would be, without needing to wait for them to get any nearer. In an attempt to control his nerves, he drew in a deep breath and stood up, reaching for Simon’s bridle as he did. He didn’t raise his eyes from the ground until he heard the horse’s hooves stop and a pair of boots thud onto the ground about five metres away from him. When he did, he say a flushed young woman storming toward him and braced for impact.
“Adam Connors, how dare you!” she yelled at him. When she cam to a standstill less than a metre away she raised her hand and slapped him hard across his cheek. “How dare you turn up here again after all these years!”
Adam knew he deserved this, and so much more, for the way he’d abandoned her without a word. He didn’t offer any defence when she began beating her fists on his chest and yelling about how much he’d hurt her, how he’d broken her heart and her trust, and how he’d humiliated her in front of all her friends and his as well. There was no point in trying to argue with her, because she was right. Every accusation she levelled at him was the truth, and every hit she landed against his body was merely a representation of the beating he often wished he’d been able to give himself. He steeled himself and waited for her anger to run its course.
“Callie,” Adam spoke her name quietly, almost like a prayer. “I’m so sorry, more than you’ll ever know, please believe that.”
“Do you have any idea how much I’ve wanted to hate you? How much I want to hate you now?” she pleaded.
“I deserve for you to hate me, I understand that, and for a long time I hated myself. I let you down, after I promised I wouldn’t, and for that I’ll never be able to forgive myself. The fact that I believed I’d be able to keep those promises when I left means nothing since I couldn’t turn those words into actions.” He was scrambling for the words that would help his cause.
“How could you do that to me? How could you promise me the world, then just forget about me the minute you left?” Adam could see tears building up in Callie’s eyes as she spoke.
“I never forgot about you, Callie. I thought about you every day.”
“But why didn’t you call or text? You could have even given your dad a message for me. Anything.” She looked up into his eyes, pain radiating from her as she did. “It was like you dropped off the planet…like you’d never existed.”
Adam thought for a moment as he searched her eyes for a glimmer of hope that she’d understand him. “I don’t want to stand here and try to make excuses for what happened, but it was so much harder to settle in up there than I thought it would be. Getting through those first weeks and months, trying to keep my school work up to standard and submitted remotely was next to impossible without working on it late into the night. And the end of year exams were even more brutal than I was expecting because I was sitting different exams to everyone else in the room.” He stopped for a moment to catch his breath. “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me – I know I should have tried harder. But each night when I crawled into bed and realised that I’d forgotten to send you a message, or call like I said I would, I promised myself that I would the next night. Then the next night turned into the next night, and that became on the weekend. Pretty soon, I convinced myself that it would be too hard to explain why it had been so long, and I just gave up like a coward.”
“None of that sounds like the Adam I used to know.” Callie sounded concerned when she spoke.
“You’re right about that, actually. For a long time, I became somebody I didn’t know, or particularly like either.” He looked into her face and reached for one of her hands. “I’ve got a lot to tell you, if you want to hear it, and I’d like to hear about what’s happened for you, too.”
Callie shook her head slowly as she thought. “Not right now, Adam. I’m going to need a little while to get used to you being here again before we go down those paths.”
“Maybe we could sit down and talk some more later this afternoon, or after dinner tonight,” he suggested.
“That might work. How long are you here for?” she asked, taking her hand out of his grasp and pushing her hair out of her eyes.
“Didn’t your dad, or mine, tell you? I’ve moved back to help out while my dad can’t work, maybe longer if things work out well.” Oh boy, he could almost hear the gears grinding inside her head as she realised that their dads had virtually blindsided her.
“Right…okay. Yeah, they mentioned that they’d found someone to help out, but they never gave me a name.” She didn’t sound too angry. “I guess I never asked for one either, assuming it would just be someone I didn’t know.”
“Well, surprise… I suppose.” Adam hoped that she’d see the almost funny side of the situation.
“I guess that means we’ve got loads of time to talk about everything then.”
“And I won’t have any excuses about distance coming between us anymore.”
“True.” Callie regarded him for a moment, a cautious expression working its way across her face.
“No, Callie…seriously.” He needed to erase that last throw away comment before it became embedded in her mind. “I’m not going to make excuses for anything anymore, past or present or future. I spent years hiding behind excuses and all that did was waste years of y life… I don’t want to waste another day being a coward. I want to be the man I thought I was going to be…the man you deserve to have in your life.”
“We’ll see about that.” Her reply worried him.
“I know I’ve got a lot of explaining and making up to do, trust me. I just hope you’ll give me
a chance.”
“You can start by telling me what went on – how you left us all behind and what happened to make you want to turn things back around.” The look in her eyes matched the serious tone in her voice. “But not until later tonight. I’ve got a lot on today…plus I need some time to get my head around you being here.”
“I understand that. I don’t want to rush into what’s going to be a long conversation.”
“What about we meet down at the barracks after dinner? That way, neither of our dads will be hanging around corners and listening in.”
“Good idea,” Adam agreed. “While my dad knows most of what I did, there’s still some things I’d rather he didn’t.”
“So…about seven-thirty? How does that sound?” Callie asked.
“Sounds good.”
“I’ve got to get back now, though. By the time I get Gabby sorted and get into town, the shops will be shutting.”
“That’s okay… my dad hinted at a long list of things he’s been saving up for me to do, so I might make a start on that once Simon and I do a bit of exploring.” He walked beside Callie as she made her way to where her horse was waiting for her. He wasn’t at all surprised to find that Simon had wandered over to get better acquainted with her. To be honest, nothing Simon did surprised him anymore. “I’ll see you tonight then.”
“It’ll be good to be able to fill in all the blanks I’ve had over the years. I’m sure I’ll have lots of questions by tonight, so you’d better be ready to talk.”
“I’m not going to be keeping secrets from you, Callie. You deserve the truth about everything.” He tried to sound reassuring as she pulled herself up into her saddle.
After a day spent reacquainting himself with the property, Adam would have happily called it an early night if he hadn’t made plans to meet Callie in a few minute’s time. Instead, he found himself leaning on the half-door of Simon’s stall, counting down the minutes until she was due to arrive, and trying to make sense of the clues his horse was giving him about how to handle tonight.
When he heard boots crunching on the deco outside, he knew the time for thinking was done. As he listened to those boots get close and closer, he resisted the urge to rush to her and take her in his arms. He knew enough to know he had to be patient and wait for Callie to come to him. Once the footfalls stopped, he felt a hand touch him on the shoulder. Expecting to hear Callie quietly saying his name, he was completely taken by surprise when he heard a deep voice boom, “Hey, dickhead.” The hand on his shoulder spun him around and before he had time to see who was there, a fist connected with the side of his face.
As the momentum of being turned around, and punched with force, spun Adam into the wall, pain exploded in his head and everything went black.
“What are you doing here?” Adam heard Callie’s voice from a long way off in the distance and tried to answer her.
“What the hell have you done?” Her voice was closer and very angry.
“Callie… before you go off -.” There was that male voice he’d caught a snippet of before – oh shit, he had to protect Callie from whoever that was.
“Before I go off? I think that’s pretty much a given, at this point You’d better pray he’s okay, because if he’s not, you won’t be either.” She sounded threatening, something Adam had never expected to hear from her. He felt someone kneel beside him and knew it was Callie when her hands gently cupped his face. “Adam? Adam? Wake up… Are you okay? Please be okay?” How she sounded worried and he knew he had to come back to her.
Adam moaned and groaned, and worked at opening his eyes. As he tried to move, he became instantly aware of an intense pain in the side of his head and put a hand up to it. “Crap!” he spat out, pain coursing along his jaw as he moved it. “What the hell?” His eyes darted around, looking for the source of danger.
“Oh, thank God you’re awake. You’ll be okay…just take it easy for a minute. I’ll help you sit up.” Callie spoke frantically. Turning her head away from him, she spoke again, “You, go and get some ice from the fridge and a cloth.” Adam heard footsteps and caught sight of a man rushing away from them. When she looked back at him, her face clearly showed how concerned she was.
“What the hell happened?” he asked, confusion over how he’d ended up passed out on the floor and in so much pain starting to take hold.
“I’m not exactly sure,” Callie answered. “But I can guarantee that we’ll know the details as soon as Shane gets back here.”
“Hang on – that was Shane? What’s he doing here?” Adam got even more confused and tried to sit up again. Callie help him to position himself against Simon’s stall, fussing all the while. “I didn’t see him come in.”
“That was the whole idea, idiot.” Shand’s voice was a little deeper than Adam remembered and had a harshness to it he didn’t think his friend was capable of.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You had it coming…waltzing back in here after all these years and expecting us all to welcome you with open arms, as if we’d just been sitting here waiting for you.”
“Shane!” Callie scolded him as she took the ice and towel from him and held them against Adam’s face.
“Ouch – that’s a bit harsh,” Adam commented.
“You think? I beg to differ,” Shane answered.
“Go ahead and enlighten me, then.” Adam couldn’t ever remember arguing with Shane, so the thought of him knocking him out didn’t sit well with him now.
“Look at it from our perspective for a minute. When you left ten years ago, you made a lot of promises and made it clear you expected us to believe them all. But guess what? You just dropped us like yesterday’s smelly socks. We never heard from you again – not a message, not a call, not even a postcard.”
“Give me a chance to explain,” Adam pleaded.
“I’m not finished yet. You need to listen before you get that chance.” Shane made it clear that Adam needed to stay quiet. “We don’t know what you went through, or what you did, but that’s not what this is about. You don’t know what we went through either. It wasn’t easy for me, having my best friend disappear out of my life, but it was especially hard for Callie.”
“Shane, you don’t have to speak for me.”
“Yes, I do, Callie. If I don’t say these things, I don’t think you will.” Shane turned his attention back to Adam. “You promised Callie you’d be back before that first Christmas, you begged her to wait for you, said all the things you needed to say to make her believe you, then…nothing. You’ve got no idea about the level of damage you’ve done.”
“I’m here now and I’m determined to make up for that,” Adam cut in.
“You can’t give back all the years and opportunities she passed up waiting for you, Adam. You can’t un-cry all the tears that she cried, you can’t replace the innocence you stole, and you definitely can’t put the broken pieces of her heart back together. When everyone in town ran you down and told her to give up on you, Callie defended you, telling them all that you’d never let her down.”
“I never meant to do any of those things, I promise.” Adam looked at Callie, his eyes begging her to believe him.
“Well, guess what – you did.” Shane’s words hit him like another punch. “As far as I’m concerned, your promises don’t mean jack shit to me anymore, and they shouldn’t to anyone else either…especially Callie.”
“I’m quite capable of speaking for myself, Shane. I’m not a little girl anymore – I haven’t been one for a long time, actually.”
“I’m fully aware of that, and you know it.” Shane shot her a conspiratorial look, which was met by an icy glare from Callie.
“And I didn’t tell you Adam was home so you could come over and beat him to a pulp; I just wanted you to know.”
“But he deserved it and you wouldn’t have done it.”
“I already did, this morning.”
“Really?”
“Yes, she did.”
“So, I don’t need you to talk for me, and I don’t need you to race in and try to save me, even if it is from myself.”
“But your judgement is off where Adam’s concerned; just being here tonight and being willing to listen to him proves that, Callie.”
“No, it doesn’t, Shane.” Adam could hear something in Callie’s voice that reminded him of when she was a flustered little girl, but chose to keep his mouth firmly shut. “All it proves is that I’m interested to hear what he has to say and that I’m adult enough to wait until I have all the information before I make a decision about whether I trust him again.”
“Which we all know you will – admit it,” Shane challenged.
“I’ll do no such thing. Give me a little credit for being able to make up my own mind about something this important.”
“I don’t think you’ll be able to stay objective. Remember, I was here when you were falling apart. I was the one who took you to your Year 12 Formal because the guy you thought was your boyfriend had disappeared. And even after you decided to date other guys, I was the one who was here to catch you when they let you fall. Callie-”
“No, Shane,” Callie cut in. “We’re not having this conversation again…not now…that’s not what tonight’s about.”
“What’s that?” Shane was beginning to sound bitter.
“The sole purpose for me agreeing to talk to Adam tonight was to hear him out. I plan to listen to what he has to say about what happened to influence the choices he made, and what he’s planning to do now and into the future. What I’m not planning to do is let myself be rushed into any kind of decision about what I choose to believe.”
From the way Callie was speaking, Adam could sense that he had his work cut out for him if he wanted to win her over and get another chance to be the man in her life.
“And where does that leave me?” Shane’s question raised Adam’s defences a little higher. Clearly there was some tension between him and Callie, but he’d let that alone for now. Shane was doing a sterling job of pushing her buttons with his help.